Activists' visibility acts of citizenship and media (mis)representation of BLM

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

This paper takes a novel approach to studying the wave of Black Lives Matter protests that emerged in the summer of 2020. Drawing on multimodal qualitative visual analysis methods, we study acts of deliberate altering and erasure of statues that represent heroes of colonialism in Greenland and Denmark. The paper conceptualises these actions as ‘visibility acts of citizenship’ in which racialised minorities claim their symbolic space in the public sphere and criticise racialized and gendered structures of oppression. We then provide a detailed visual and textual analysis of conservative Danish media representations of the protest. This allows us to show how the media (mis)represented protesters’ actions, and its response to accusations of racism and calls for change. Thus, we extend the literature on visual analysis of protest by including not only activists’ visual acts but also the visual responses of mainstream conservative media to the movement.

Original languageEnglish
JournalEuropean Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology
Volume10
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)525-551
ISSN2325-4823
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 European Sociological Association.

    Research areas

  • Black Lives Matter, colonialism, media, race, statues, Visual analysis

ID: 346599254